He sensed something far ahead. People and cattle, walking toward him. He’d prefer to just run past, but being seen as a Werewolf wasn’t something he wanted to do. There was only one thing he was afraid of–the Forsaken. They didn’t care about much of what he did, but revealing the existence of the Were world was taboo.
It would get the skin flayed off him. His pain and ultimate death would give the Forsaken much pleasure, but having to go after the tainted humans and kill them all? The Forsaken would find that a huge pain in the ass, so they’d make Marcus suffer all the more.
No. He wanted to, because he knew he was catching up to them. No horse could outrun him. They were too weak. After killing the humans and conquering his mate, he’d dine on one of their mounts, maybe kill them all out of spite. He relished the thought.
He changed into human form, put on his clothes, and jogged up the riverbed where the approaching group couldn’t see how fast he was running.
As he closed on them, he slowed, then jumped into the stream. Dripping wet, he staggered up the bank and threw himself onto the ground.
The group of people stopped and looked at him in shock.
“Where did you come from?” an old man asked, his wife at his side along with an array of children from five to twenty. A small herd of cows followed obediently.
“I’ve been following my wife, she has purple eyes, and an interloper, a family wrecker!” Marcus howled, pleading with the patriarch and matriarch of the family before him. The old lady hurried to him to help him up.
He stood, towering over the little old lady. She gasped and backed away. The old man fingered his rusty shotgun as he looked at the massive human being who stood before them. The younger children hid behind their parents. The only ones unimpressed were the cows, who continued ambling west.
Antioch remembered himself and did as Terry Henry Walton had asked.
“They are going east, following the river. You’ll see our place a ways back. Keeping going past that. You can’t miss their tracks. She’s with them, as you already know,” Antioch intoned, sounding as if he’d memorized the script.
Marcus reached out with his senses. Maybe, kind of, almost at the edge of what he could feel. Char and something else. He needed to get closer.
“Thank you, kind people. I’ll be on my way, if you don’t mind.” Marcus dismissed the group, assuming they’d die in the Wastelands before they could get wherever they were going. He looked longingly at the cows as he ran past, but he’d be dining on fresh horse meat before too long. Marcus ran ahead, checking back every now and then to see the group fade into the distance. When they could no longer see, he removed his clothes and changed into a Werewolf. He ran to the river, dunked his head, drank deeply, and raced back up the bank. The cows had obliterated the hoof prints he’d been following, but that didn’t matter. He could see where they’d gone and soon, he’d catch them.
There was nowhere to hide in the Wastelands.
Terry Henry Walton’s heart ripped from his chest, Marcus chewing it casually as the flies gathered around the dead man. Horseflesh, raw, blood still pumping, and his mate, cowering at his feet and licking the blood from his fur if that’s what he commanded her to do.
Soon, all would be right with his world.
Then he’d find those other traitorous fucks of his pack and make them lick their own blood from his paws.
* * *
Terry pushed the group hard as he searched for the right place. As nightfall approached on the day after leaving Antioch and Claire’s homestead, he wondered if they’d misjudged Marcus. He instantly learned that he hadn’t.
“He is coming,” Char told the group as they attempted to make a fire in a ravine leading from the river.
“How long do we have?” Terry asked.
“A half-hour, maybe less. He is moving with a great deal of determination, it seems,” Char said calmly.
“Gerry, hide the horses up the river. James and Devlin, set up on the opposite riverbank. Lacy, down here with us. You’ll have the best angle to shoot, if we can get him to come down the river. Stoke that fire! We need something to draw him here and you need to be able to see your target,” Terry ordered, running downriver to find more driftwood to use as kindling. He returned with an armload as did the others. They lit it and stoked it to make one grand bonfire.
The light blazed into the dark of the early night. The heat was too much to stand close.
“Get in position now, hurry up,” Terry told them. He heard one of the horses whinny. “Farther away, Geronimo!” he called, cupping his hands around his mouth to yell downriver.
“That’s it? Your plan is we draw him in here and then stand side by side as he kills us both?” Char said with a half-smile.
Clyde laid down by the fire, anxious at the activity and the emotions surging through the alpha and the others.
“No. I was going to stand over there, so I don’t get any of your blood on me. It would be so hard to get out of my uniform,” he quipped. She only shook her head as he moved away and double-checked the two silvered bullets in his rifle. He removed the sling and held the rifle free. He loosened his knife and wrapped his bullwhip around his forearm.
Then they waited.
Char moved aside, undressed, and changed into her Werewolf form. She stretched and snarled. Then she reared back and howled her challenge to the night sky.
A howl responded from the distance.
* * *
“We lost that man Marcus, Billy, and to add insult to injury, some beast is following the colonel. An hour’s ride down the river and its tracks were right there on top of the hoof prints.. We had to come back, let you know that the man didn’t follow them. We don’t know where he went,” Mark stated, trying not to look like he’d failed, although that was exactly what he felt.
“Isn’t that what you went out there for, to find out?” Billy asked as he leaned back in his chair. “So if that man comes back, we finish him, without talking. We’ll call Terry’s plan to lead him away a nice try, but we’ll take care of it ourselves, don’t you think, Mark?”
“That works for me. I’d like to go back out there, keep looking, if I may,” Mark asked.
“No.” Billy leaned forward, putting his forearms on the table. “You found out what you could, and now you need to set up the welcoming committee for when Marcus returns. No hesitation next time. We shoot to kill. Is that clear?” Mark nodded, pursing his lips. He looked to Billy for more, but there wasn’t anything else.
Boris had been silent the entire time. He didn’t have anything to add, and he definitely didn’t want to skyline himself with the mayor. Sometimes, anonymity was a good thing.
Mark stood up, waved Boris to follow, and walked out to inform the men. He needed to make a plan that was counter to the colonel’s last orders. He didn’t like it, but that was the position he filled.
“Boris, go get everyone and then we’ll build our trap. I wonder if Billy will let us put someone in his attic,” he said, thinking out loud as Boris ran off to find the rest of the guard.
* * *
“We stay here,” Timmons told them, trying to exert his authority as the new alpha, a position that he thought of for himself. The others had followed, only thinking Timmons the senior beta, not an all-powerful alpha.
“We stay because we like it here, not because of your order,” Sue countered, standing up straight, looking small compared to the males. The others nodded.
“Maybe it’s time we decide?” Timmons pressed. Xandrie and Shonna leaned back as if they’d been punched. Sue sat down. She wasn’t the one to challenge for the leadership of the pack.
Ted and Adams avoided looking at Timmons. Merrit stood up, put his hand on his chin, raised one eyebrow, and looked very much like the thinking man.
“Why?” Merrit asked simply.
“Because, the pack needs a leader!” Timmons retorted, working his anger, feeding it as he readied himself for the physical fight for dominance. Merrit hel
d up his hands and shook his head.
“No one is going to fight you today, Timmons. We’re staying. Is that not good enough? If you want to play alpha, more power to you, but what happens when Marcus returns? We will point to you and he will kill you, then we’ll assume our roles as good betas. If he’s convinced we don’t have a new alpha, then maybe we all survive.” Merrit talked while walking back and forth, reasoning out his argument.
“By leaving Marcus alive, we agreed that he was the alpha. A pack can’t have two, Timmons, no matter how much we’d like to see you in that role.” Merrit smiled as a way to solidify his point.
The others nodded.
“We should have killed him,” Timmons snarled.
“There is no value in such recriminations, my friend,” Merrit answered. “We have to live with our decisions. So, let’s make the best of it. We stay. There’s plenty of game. It’s comfortable here. For now, let’s call it home.”
The others nodded again in agreement. Timmons was angry that Merrit was right. He took a deep breath and calmed himself. “Maybe we can dig something useful out of those labs. It’d be nice to blow shit up again. I miss that…”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Terry moved to the other side of the small stream that trickled down the center of the riverbed. The South Platte had carried a great deal more water in the before time, but it had also run dry back then, too. At least there was some water and it wasn’t tainted.
And none of that mattered in their current situation. The alpha bore down on them from the bank to their left, the south side of the river. Char stood closest to that point. Terry aimed his rifle at the bank, waiting for the moment the great black Werewolf appeared.
The rest of the Force were arrayed to bring maximum firepower to bear on the alpha and catch him in a crossfire, assuming he entered the riverbed where Char and Terry waited.
Char dropped to all fours and snarled. Her hackles rose and spittle flew from her mouth. Those on the banks were unnerved by the sight and the sound. The bonfire reflected off her shiny pelt. Lacy was on the south riverbank, and she was the first one to see him approach, only glimpses as he glided over the Wastelands in the weak moonlight.
Terry put Lacy there because he assumed the alpha wouldn’t attack a woman.
Marcus unerringly bore down on Lacy. She fired, then panicked and flipped the lever to automatic. She yanked back on the trigger, spraying her rounds skyward as the barrel jumped. She emptied an entire magazine and didn’t hit the massive creature running straight at her.
Marcus hit her at full speed, throwing her ten feet in the air and twenty feet backward. She landed in a heap and rolled down the bank. No one knew if she lived or died. The alpha stood overlooking Char, but only for an instant.
Long enough for Terry Henry Walton, expert Marine Corps marksman, to send a round behind the Werewolf’s left shoulder. Marcus yipped like a wounded pup. Clyde picked up on the creature’s pain and started to bray. He crouched as if he was going to run, but Terry yelled.
The alpha jumped down the bank and powered straight toward Char. She dodged, as she’d been practicing, avoiding his jaws and sinking her teeth into his neck as he passed.
He was wider than she remembered, and he jammed her hard with his shoulder as he leapt skyward. She lost her grip and fell in his wake, rolling to get back on her feet.
Terry fired and instantly dropped the weapon as the alpha continued toward him, leaving Char on the ground. Terry couldn’t uncoil the bullwhip quickly enough, so he pulled his knife with his left hand and waited to dodge the incoming freight train.
Marcus was in pain, but his anger was overwhelming. There she was, with the human. It drove him beyond the edge of reason. The small man’s heart would be his and Char, he could tell, was in heat. Wolf pups. He would make them this very night while dancing in the blood of the dead.
Terry wondered how much silver it would take to affect the massive beast. He didn’t think he had enough, no matter what.
He stabbed at the paw that came for his head, leaving a clean slice on the outside of the Werewolf’s leg. Marcus kicked hard with his back legs, catching Terry Henry in the mid-section.
Terry went down as if a pile driver hit him. He gasped as all the air was forced from him. His knife was gone. Marcus hit the ground, stopped on a dime and turned, his massive jaws heading straight for Terry’s face.
Char’s silver belly fur flew over Terry’s face. She landed on Marcus’s head with her front paws. She held his head down as she attempted to clamp her jaws on the black beast’s neck. It was too wide and she only got a mouthful of hair and skin, but her fangs ripped inward.
Marcus stood on his back legs and roared his pain. Clyde darted in and bit the alpha’s back leg, but the Werewolf kicked him away as if shaking off a fly. James and Devlin were ready to fire, but Char covered Marcus’s back. They didn’t have a clean shot.
Marcus dropped to all fours, vaulted over Terry, and ran straight for the bonfire with Char bouncing around on his back. He slid to a stop, ducked his head, and arched upward. Char flew from him and into the fire. She kicked through it and ran out the far side, hitting the ground and rolling to put out the flames.
Marcus stalked to the side, trapping Char between the fire and the riverbank.
Shots rang out. Dust puffed from Marcus’s hide where the bullets impacted. James and Devlin kept firing. Char scrambled up the bank behind the bonfire, escaping the alpha’s trap.
He turned and growled, his yellow eyes glowing as he raged. Blood ran from the gash on his leg. There had been very little silver on Terry’s bullets and those wounds hurt, but they were starting to heal. The regular bullets just made him angry, and he’d had enough. He charged to his right and up the bank.
“Get down here!” Terry yelled as he tried to stand. His stomach hurt and he thought a couple ribs might be broken. Char was nowhere to be seen.
The two men jumped from the top of the bank and landed in the soft dirt, sliding down until they were at the bottom. The alpha leapt after them, creating a mini-avalanche when he hit the soft ground. He tried to push off, but the dirt gave way and he fell, sliding face first down the hill.
James and Devlin jumped to the side as the Werewolf slid in between them. James spun and snap fired into the vast black side. He pulled the trigger quickly, unable to flip the lever to automatic as he stumbled backwards. Marcus jumped toward him and Devlin fired into his back leg until the bolt locked to the rear. He fumbled for another magazine.
Marcus grabbed James in his great jaws, shook his head and threw the man aside. He turned and jumped, but his back leg failed him. He staggered forward and bit the rifle, yanking it from Devlin’s hands.
Char howled her challenge from atop the riverbank. Her purple eyes glowed with her fury. They stood like two beacons, auroras calling to the alpha. He stood transfixed, giving his leg time to heal. He scrambled up the bank behind him, looking like he was running from Char’s challenge.
She jumped down the bank, running to the bottom.
“No!” Terry yelled, expecting the alpha to leap back into the ravine to land on her.
He didn’t. The fire snapped and popped. Clyde barked and pranced. A slight breeze blew across the Wastelands.
“Where is he, Char?” Terry asked as he struggled to stay upright.
She growled and snapped her jaws. Terry couldn’t understand her when she was in Werewolf form. He splashed through the small stream and stood on the opposite side, not far from Char. He uncoiled his whip and waited.
James groaned in agony. Devlin crawled through the soft dirt at the bottom of the bank to get to him. There was nothing he could do to help James, but he took his rifle, crouching to remain between the corporal and the Werewolf.
Marcus howled from somewhere beyond the riverbank, not far away but not close. Char howled in reply, muscles tensed. She looked to be uninjured, despite getting thrown into a roaring bonfire.
Her eyes continued to radiate the
ir purple glow. “That didn’t go too badly,” Terry said, laughing. It was the Marine’s way to joke during a battle. It was too easy to get lost in the black and white world of combat’s life and death. One wrong move and you could die. You could do everything right and still die. Sometimes the reaper cleaned house. When it was your time, it was your time.
No sense crying like a baby. A Marine’s mettle was based on his ability to sow death and destruction, while at the same time having fun. Not too much fun, just enough that when the reaper knocked, you could laugh one last time.
Fuck that guy.
“My gut hurts,” Terry said out loud.
Char growled and crouched.
“Go time, mother fucker!” Terry yelled into the darkness as he twirled the bullwhip beside him. Marcus arced high over the ravine as he jumped toward his mate. Her muscles uncoiled and she darted underneath him.
Terry snapped his wrist, aligned the whip with where Marcus was going to land, and watched the tip lash forward. The great black Werewolf was hit! The whip cracked and wrapped halfway around his neck. The silver of the necklace tore deep. Terry yanked the whip back, tearing skin and hide away from Marcus’s throat.
Marcus reared back and howled his pain to the stars of the night sky. Terry took one step closer for a second try with his whip, but Marcus bolted away, jumping off a vertical bank to turn and face his enemies.
His dangerous enemies.
They all needed to die. He was done playing.
Devlin fired, hitting the Werewolf again and again. The bolt locked and he smoothly changed magazines.
Marcus was done getting used for target practice. He ran wide, like the wind, his back leg functional after giving it time to heal. He circled and lined up for his attack on Devlin.
The young man never knew what hit him as Marcus seized his upper body in his jaws and bit down, crushing Devlin’s chest. The Werewolf tossed the body to the side, keeping his head low to protect his neck. Char started circling him, assuming the role of aggressor.
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